Lucid Screaming: Deep Sleep

The winner of the 10th Casual Gameplay Design Competition is a browser-based escape the room game in which it’s possible to leave the room after a couple of clicks of the mouse. The larger space from which to escape is actually a dreamscape, made up of gloomy staircases and shadowy rooms. Deep Sleep is a horror game, by golly, and relies on mood rather than jump scares to unsettle. Scratchy pixels and simple puzzles are the furnishings of this haunted house, and the delivery is effective over the very short playtime. There’s no reason for anything that happens – the story is essentially ‘a person has a dream and thinks about it afterwards for a bit’ – but it happens quite well and, given the price of nothing, that’s quite enough for me.